“lost around a third of the territory it once controlled”

“The Islamic State group has lost around a third of the territory it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, according to figures provided Tuesday by the US-led coalition. “In Iraq, it’s about 40 percent,” said Colonel Steve Warren, spokesman for the international coalition which carries out daily air raids against IS and also provides training and weapons to local forces fighting the group. “In Syria… we think it’s around 20” percent, he said. When the size of the so-called caliphate IS proclaimed 18 months ago was at its largest, Iraq accounted for a slightly bigger part of it than Syria. “Taking together Iraq and Syria… they lost 30 percent of the territory they once held,” Warren told reporters in Baghdad”.